


Between Hell and Wherever We Are

by nivu_vu



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Kinda, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Teen Stans, get gay in the boys bathroom, with a nice helping of self-depreciation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 21:45:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8225740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nivu_vu/pseuds/nivu_vu
Summary: Stan's problem is that he needs to stop trying to avoid what he's known for a good portion of his life. He keeps running, but eventually it catches up, as problems are wont to do.





	

Stan looked down at the dirty floor of the boys’ bathroom between his feet. His vision had been getting worse, but that wasn’t why the tiles were so blurry. He _wished_ that were the only reason. He dug his fingers into his hair, probably too hard, to try to get the spinning in his head to stop.

It wasn’t working. Nothing was working.

“You freak.”

The words slipped between his teeth without him meaning to.

“You’re a piece of shit.”

He wanted to stop. He wanted it all to end. What if someone walked in and heard him talking to himself? People were picking on him enough already. He couldn’t let it get any worse. It’d be worse on Ford, too.

 _Ford_.

The name and image of his brother filled his mind and calmed him as much as it twisted his stomach. That _look_ Stanford had given him before he made a mad dash to get away was… unnerving. He couldn’t quite decipher it, but he didn’t want to give it much thought. Not like he had much time to. He was out of that classroom fast. His body was reacting, and it was something no one needed to see.

“I’m so sorry, Sixer.”

Filthy walls threw his voice back at him. He wondered how long it would be until Ford got worried and came looking for him. If he was lucky, Ford wouldn’t remember Stan existed ever again. Stan could sit in this stall for the rest of his life. It would be fitting, he believed, to rot with the rest of the shit here.

Stan knew he wasn’t lucky, though. He would pretend he had looks or strength or charisma or even his brother, but when he was here, brought down to reality, he knew. He knew he wasn’t anything special, couldn’t protect Ford as much as he wanted, pushed away a lot of people. And the worst thing he knew was that Ford was going to leave him one day.

The boat was a pipe dream. Ford had a future. Stan was a failure.

He _knew_ this.

That’s why he didn’t understand the aching in his chest. He didn’t understand why he wanted so badly to be at Ford’s side. The last thing he wanted was to hinder Stanford.

And yet, here he was, wanting the most selfish thing. Stan realized it fully that day. If he were honest, which he hardly ever was, he’d admit that he’d known it for ages now. But he had denied it.

It was wrong, wrong in a way that even he didn’t want to be associated with.

So now he was hiding like a pathetic coward in the end stall of the least trafficked boys’ bathroom in their entire school.

Maybe school would end, and he could sneak home, pretend he ditched class to go smoke or drink or _something_ that people his age actually did.

Fuck, not even “people his age”. He needed to pretend he was doing something any human being would be doing. Because what he wanted? It was unnatural. He stopped believing in a hell a while ago, but he was sure that if there was one, he’d be going there. No, he was already there.

Stan sat and waited, unmoving. His feet had gone numb an hour or so ago. No one came in, not even Ford to look for him, even though Ford knew where Stan was. Stan always came here to hide. They both used to, when they were younger.

Stan remembered that time Crampelter had brought a knife to try and remove one of Ford’s extra fingers. He remembered the two of them huddled close and trying to stop the bleeding on the cut that the bastard had gotten on Ford before he was able to escape. He remembered looking into Ford’s watery eyes and _knowing_ and-

Fuck. Fuck.

He buried his face into his hands. There was no more lying to himself. He’d done it for years before even high school, and now it’d built up and he really should’ve dealt with it all those years ago.

A part of him said it was okay. Ford never needed to know. No one ever needed to know. Even if he made it really obvious sometimes. Like the third and latest time he and Carla broke up.

She’d said that Stan never seemed to have time for her despite not having any extracurricular activities. And everyone and their mom knew that he didn’t do his homework. So she’d asked why. Why did Stan never want to leave the house when he proclaimed that he loved to go out.

Stan hadn’t been able to say that he just wanted to spend time with Ford. The statement would have been far too true, so he’d just shrugged and now he was single. Single. Lonely. And stuck in a bathroom thinking about his brother. His irritating, smartass of a brother.

Now, he really questioned the existence of a God, because his circumstances had to have been carefully crafted by some cosmic higher-up to be this shitty.

Then, Stan heard the door to the bathroom open.

“Stanley?”

He was dead. For real this time. He was way too cold and stiff to be alive anymore, but his heart was beating. It was beating fast and hard and it was in his throat, choking what little life he did have left.

Familiar footsteps approached his stall. Two light knocks on the door.

“Stanley, let me in.”

He’d spent years avoiding this. There was no more running, so Stan swallowed, stood, and unlocked the bolt, stepping out of the way to let the door swing its arc without interference.

“Hey, Sixer.” Stan’s voice was shaky. He hated it. The ants running around under the skin of his un-numbing feet weren’t helping either. 

Stanford stepped inside and locked the door behind him. They were too close together for Stan’s comfort. “What’s wrong?”

At that moment, Stan found out that he still wanted to run from his problems. Maybe just a little longer. “Nothing.”

But he was caught. No matter what he wanted, Ford had him pinned. Sadly, it was only figuratively.

Ford raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were better at lying than that.”

Stan changed his inflection slightly and looked away. “Nothing.”

“You’re not fooling me.”

“I just didn’t want to be in class anymore.” That was mostly the truth.

Ford took hold of one of Stan’s wrists, forcing Stanley to turn back and make eye contact. It was like giving into an addiction he’d had since birth. Stan met his brother’s concerned gaze and was immediately calmed. Everything was right with the world, because Stan had his whole world in front of him.

“A-Are you sure?” Ford asked, the unsure one now, but the lack of certainty wasn’t directed at Stan. It was directed inwardly.

This was Stan’s ticket out of the mess he’d made. “’Sounds like you’re the one with something bothering you.”

It was Ford’s turn to avoid eye contact. He seemed to find the lewd messages graffiti’d on the grimy wall suddenly very interesting. “It’s nothing.”

“Are _you_ sure?” Stan paused, controlling his tone for the next sentence very carefully. “You kinda gave me this look earlier.”

Apparently, Stan had fucked up somehow, again, as he always did. Ford dropped his wrist in a heartbeat and fell back against the stall door. The loud clatter of its hinges stung Stan’s ears. “I-it was nothing, Stanley!”

“Stanford?” Stan took a step closer to his older brother, but six-fingered hands shot out to keep him back.

He barely heard Ford’s words. “Please, don’t touch me.”

Something wasn’t clicking in Stan’s mind. He was usually really good at reading his brother. At least, that’s what he thought. Reading Ford was supposed to be like doing basic addition. It’d always been that way, but now all Stan saw were the ridiculous variables and graphs that Ford loved. Which was terrible. Stan wasn’t a puzzle solver. That was Ford’s… _fordte_.

This wasn’t the time for his shit sense of humor, though, so Stan saved that for later.

“Are ya’ sick or something, Sixer?”

Ford shook his head, finally dropping his arms. Stan hesitated a moment before trying once more to approach his panicky twin. He was only one step in Ford’s spatial bubble when Ford tensed up again.

“Easy, Ford, I’m not gonna touch you. Just let me look at you.”

Stanford resisted that invitation to lift his head. Stan could almost see the machinations of his genius brother’s mind whirring, churning out rationalization after rationalization as to why Stan could be ignored. They were similar in that way. Stan could lie to himself just as easily as Ford could make himself believe the stupidest decision was reasonable.

It was no wonder that Ford failed to make an excuse, then, because only a minute earlier Stan had similarly failed to continue his internal façade. 

Ford looked up, directly into Stan’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Stanley. I-“ Ford balled his fists at his sides too tightly. Stan wanted to reach over and relax them before Ford could hurt himself.

But he kept true to his word, no physical contact.

Ford started again, “I-“ and stopped.

Stan tried to think back to the look Ford had given him. What about it was bothering Ford so much? It was just another one of his nerdy looks, of which he had an endless amount.

Ford had just turned, and then… 

Ford had turned to look at Stanley, and was taken aback. He was looking at Stanley like he was seeing his twin for the first time in all of their sixteen years. Ford’s mouth had twitched, and his breath had caught in his throat. It was a pretty decent copy of how Stan sometimes found himself while stealing glimpses of Ford. Ford smiling. Ford laughing. Ford spouting off some smart people nonsense. All those times over the years that Stan was staring like a love-stuck fool at his own brother.

A horrifying possibility dawned on Stan, horrifying in that it could either make or break them.

There was no way it was true, though. There was no way. Stan refused to believe it.

But his dumbass mouth went off anyway. “Sixer, do you like me?”

Later, he’d regret sounding like a sixth grader asking his first girl out, but that’d be much, much later. Right now, something – his heart – was pounding in his ears. Stan’s mind was moving faster than he ever recalled it had. It kept him from making any sense of Ford’s frantic expression.

There were only two answers to the question he’d posed.

No, and Stan would play it off as a joke. A misunderstanding. He was the dumb twin, anyway. He obviously wasn’t feeling well; he was hiding in this stall for a reason. Yeah, there were a million different excuses for his slip of the tongue.

However, yes, and Stan didn’t know what to do. How was he supposed to react when the person he’d been chasing after for years returned his feelings? When said person was his fucking twin brother?

It couldn’t be the latter, though. Ford wasn’t a freak. Ford was too smart for this bullshit. He only had love for science, for school, and- and-

For his brother.

But not like that. Not like that. _Not like that_.

Stan was already formulating the casual dismissal of his heartbreaking question when the slightest of whispers came from his brother.

“What?” Stan asked. The question was loud, cutting through the thick atmosphere that had clouded their little world.

Ford unclenched his fists, and Stan could see the blood welling where the sharp, uneven edges of chewed nails had dug into dry palms. “You’d never hate me… right?”

The vulnerability in that question stabbed Stanley cleanly through his gut. “No, what the hell, Ford? I’d never. I-“

Ford’s eyes desperately searched for the truth, for any hint of reluctance in his statement.

“I could never hate you, Sixer. It’s you and me against the world, yeah?”

Stanford’s chest rose with a deep breath, like the last one from a dying man. It came out wracked. Stan wondered if Ford was actually sick or not. The stress of his schoolwork might have finally caught up to him.

Then, Ford spoke. “Yeah.”

Stan didn’t understand. “What?”

“I don’t want to repeat myself.” Ford took one look at Stan’s face and figured that he’d have to elaborate regardless. He took off his glasses to wipe them with his shirt, only one out of the fifteen nervous habits Stan knew about. “I- I like you, Stanley. Not like a b-brother sh-should. Shit.” He dropped his glasses on the floor and kept his eyes trained on them as he continued, his words spilling out now without biddance. “Is that clear? I- I’m a freak, Stanley. I know you’ve spent our whole lives trying to tell people otherwise, but you were wrong. You were wrong, okay? Okay. I- Th- they- We- I don’t know. I’ve had this talk with myself too many times to count. And I still don’t know what to say. But I’m sorry, Stanley. I’m so sorry your brother is a freak. I’m sorry you wasted your time protecting a freak like me.”

Stan stared very carefully at his brother, none of that spiel registering in the slightest.

“You don’t have to talk to me ever again. I just- I’m sorry, Stanley.” Ford started to bend down to pick up his glasses when Stan grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him against the door. Stanford raised his hands defensively, apparently expecting to be beaten for his admission.

Stan would’ve been insulted were he not so single-mindedly driven at the moment. He pressed his lips against his brother’s and was immediately met with hands pushing against his chest to _back the fuck off_.

He pulled back a few inches. “Didn’t you just say you wanted that, Sixer?” Stan was more than confused. _A lot more_ than confused, but he needed the go ahead before he could deal with those parts.

“You kissed me!”

Stan took a full step back now. “Yeah, no shit! What happened to ‘I like you more than a brother should’?”

Ford quickly swiped his glasses off the floor and shoved them onto his face. “I don’t know! I just- I’ve never kissed anyone before!”

Stan snorted, “Everyone knows that.”

“No, I-“ Ford’s indignant look made Stan want to laugh. He’d save that laugh for later, along with his pun. “I- Do _you_ like me?”

“You know, for a genius, you’re really dumb sometimes.” Before Ford could come up with a retort, Stan moved a six-fingered hand to the bulge pressing tightly against his jeans. “What do you think?”

“S-Stan-“

“Don’t act like you’ve never touched a dick before. I hear you jack off more than even _I_ want to.” That was not even close to true. Stan remembered all those nights of Ford’s muffled panting well. Each and every one of them.

“Shut it.” Ford’s face was flushed. It was probably embarrassment, but Stan liked to think some of it was due to a much more fun reason.

He took a pause, though, suddenly self-conscious. The reality of the situation was catching up to him. “Do you, uh, do you want to kiss, though?”

“I-“ Ford started. He blinked a few times, trying to process the situation they’d landed themselves in. Words failing him, he settled on a nod.

Stan returned said nod and stepped back into his brother’s space. It wasn’t the first time he’d been so invasive, but this time it felt less… _invasive_. It felt invited. Stan felt closer to Ford, somehow. They’d been close their entire lives. But this was different.

His kiss was different from earlier as well. Stan gently took Ford’s face in his hands. He was looking into a mirror, if the mirror could somehow remove all the worse parts of himself. Ford was him, except better. And Stan would never understand why Ford kept him around, why Ford for some reason appeared to return his feelings, but he didn’t have time to question it now.

Stan angled his head slightly, and closed the small distance to his brother’s lips. Upon contact, he could sense all the gears halting in Ford’s head. Instinct took over, and Ford’s fingers were digging into his back and pulling him in until their chests met. Stan parted his lips and Ford followed, tongues slipping together and noises slipping out that neither anticipated nor argued.

On the contrary, Stan _loved_ the sounds he was eliciting from Ford. He never imagined being able to get his brother so fucking needy for _him_ and him _alone_.

Kinda. He did imagine it. A lot. But for it to be real? This was beyond imagination.

Ford was actually in his arms. Ford was actually trying to grind their hips together. Stan was sure he was dead. And that he’d been wrong. This had to be heaven, not the hell he’d been prepared for.

Stanford broke the kiss first. Stan was about to object when Ford, out of breath, slightest bit of saliva (his or Ford’s or both he didn’t know) at the corner of his lips, started to try to unbuckle Stan’s jeans. Ford had the determination in his eye that was only ever reserved for his science bullshit, and Stan was frankly quite flattered to be getting that attention. Sorta insulted, too, that he shared it with schoolwork, but mostly flattered.

In a matter of seconds, Ford had Stan’s fly undone – that ridiculous dexterity Stan attributed to the sixth finger probably – and was freeing the younger twin’s aching cock, gripping and stroking it in more of a desperate need to _touch_ than anything. And fuck, it was still getting Stan off.

“God, I’ve wanted this for so long, Stanley,” Ford panted. He didn’t give Stan a chance to respond, snaking his other hand under Stan’s arm and pulling Stan by the back of the head back into another deep kiss.

Stan groaned into Ford’s mouth, trying to work on unbuttoning Ford’s jeans as well. Embarrassingly, he didn’t have nearly as much success as his brother had, so Ford had to remove his hand from Stan’s dick to help. 

Stanley broke the kiss this time, to look at his brother holding himself in those six fingers that Stan dreamt about so often.

“Fuck, Sixer.”

“I-is something wrong?”

Stan wrapped a hand around Ford’s. “N-no,” he said, voice shaky for a wholly different reason than before.

Slowly, they began to jack Ford off together. Their foreheads met in a soft knock that had both of them grinning stupidly. The quiet of the bathroom was replaced by the brothers’ groans and the wet sounds of their sins. Stan didn’t care, though. And the lust written all over Ford’s face said that he cared just about as much. 

Ford said something then, something bordering unintelligible.

“Huh?” Stan asked dumbly, intoxicated by their-

“Love.”

“Stanford?”

“I love you, Stanley.”

They both froze, the heaviness of those words hitting them at the same time. They hardly ever said that word even in a familial fashion. It was too _touchy-feely_ for them, ironic, seeing their current situation. But it was a word out-of-place in their vocabulary. And Ford definitely wasn’t saying it in the brotherly sense right now.

Stan opened his mouth and closed it a couple times, unable to speak. This reaction wasn’t helping Ford, whose eyes were once again filled with panic.

Ford found his voice first. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t-“

Stan found it immediately after. “Say it again.”

“I’m sorry?”

“No, you knucklehead. The- the other thing.”

Ford licked his lips. “I love you.”

“Yeah. That.” Stan leaned in and kissed Ford’s neck, sliding his lips up and sucking on his jaw, their hands starting to work up a rhythm again. It must’ve been the hormones, the high of this dream come true, because Stan said something he never meant to get out. “I’m yours.”

Ford chuckled at that. “I’m yours, too.”

The laugh devolved into whimpers as Ford approached his climax, his breathing growing more and more uneven. When he came, he twisted his hand into the neck of Stan’s shirt and yanked him into a rough kiss, effectively muffling the groan that rumbled in Stan’s throat. Ford’s release stained mostly their hands, a few spare drops getting on Stan’s shirt, not that he minded. Yeah. Stan didn’t mind at all.

He trailed his mouth to Ford’s neck again, removing his hand from Ford’s cock and starting to work on himself, and he relished in the fact that it was Ford’s come slicking over him. Stan slid the other hand under Ford’s shirt, resting it on the small of his back.

Stanford leaned his head back against the stall door. His free hand dropped limply to his side, exhausted breaths filling the air beside Stan’s ear. Stan loved it. He loved that sound and how it was them two together who brought Ford to this worn state. He loved it all. He loved _Ford_.

It was pathetic how fast Stanley came following that realization, uncaringly splattering his brother’s clothes.

He added a groggy “I’m sorry” as an afterthought.

“It’s fine,” Ford replied.

Neither of them moved for a minute, basking in whatever the fuck it was they just did. That was, until Stan, back angry with the awkward position, straightened up and tucked himself in his pants. Ford absentmindedly did the same, still supporting his head on the door.

The haze of their intimacy drained gradually, being replaced by a tired satisfaction. As their hearts and lungs calmed and the quiet returned, Ford simply said, “Wow.”

Stan laughed. It echoed around the mostly empty bathroom. “Yeah. Wow.”

Ford slouched forward, forehead falling on Stan’s shoulder. “You want to get cleaned up so we can go home?”

Stan pulled his brother into a tight hug. “Yeah,” he lied.


End file.
